Thursday, February 7, 2013

Common Laburnum (Laburnum anagyroides)

Be aware that some plants in parks and gardens could be
poisonous, especially for children. One of them is Common Laburnum. And did you
know that during First World War, experiments were conducted aimed at using laburnum to
replace tobacco, because the principal psychoactive chemical is cytosine, which
has similar effects to nicotine?

Laburnum anagyroides, this image is under CC-BY-SA of University of Vienna, Institute for Botany - Herbarium WU in Europeana

Laburnum
is a robust shrub or small tree with smooth gray bark, reaching heights of up
to seven meters. It blooms from April through May with profuse cascades of labiates
yellow racemes. Pods are bean-like, colored brownish-gray. This angiosperm is
also known as golden rain or golden chain. It originated in southern and
southwestern Europe, but is frequently planted in parks and gardens as an
ornamental shrub. Its hardy character also led to it frequently being planted
around schools, and this was a frequent source of mass poisonings in children.

Laburnum
contains poisonous cytosyne, which is present primarily in the flowers, seeds
and roots. Most poisonings occur in children, from playing with pods and seeds.
A fatal dose for children is three to four pods, or twelve to fifteen seeds of
laburnum. Initial symptoms of poisoning appear thirty minutes to an hour after
ingestion, and include burning mouth, nausea and vomiting. Subsequent symptoms
are intense stomach and intestinal cramps, sweating, headaches and muscle
spasms, up through circulatory failure. Fatal poisonings are manifested as
whole-body paralysis with death from lung paralysis in one to several hours.

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